BBQ at McQuillan Manor in 32 seconds …… and a great chance to chat about Gawker
Gawker is an amazing piece of software for Mac OS that I have just discovered. With very little effort it allows you to put together a short movie of still imagines to track a day of work or an event.
Time lapsed BBQ at McQuillan Manor – 11th July using Gawker from Russell McQuillan on Vimeo.
Cheaper by the dozen ? Not any more !
A new barmy law has been passed down from our good old buddies in the European Union. All food sold in EU stores must be advertised, priced and sold by weight and not quantity.
Until now, Britain has been exempt from EU regulations that forbid the selling of goods by number. But last week MEPs voted to end Britain’s deal despite objections from UK members.
This means Eggs, bread rolls and oranges too, so gone will be the day of buying a box of 6 egg’s for 99p.
Now you will have to buy 382grams of egg’s or 396grams of eggs depending which box you pick up, no box of 6 egg’s will ending up the same price as the next as it is nearly impossible to get 6 egg’s to weigh the same, unless we can somehow program the chickens to fire out 50gram eggs on comand but that would probably be in human.
What a load of balls, not two balls of course, a load of balls. Who thinks of these stupid laws? How is this helpful to the general public ? I want 6 egg’s, I’m quite happy to open the box and judge if the egg’s I am buying are big enough after all, I am not a complete moran ! (more…)
Volcano’s, Bankruptcy and Strike’s, Oh my ! Is it time to loose faith in the airline industry ?
The traveling public have had a bit of a wake up call this year with regard to air travel. Between strikes, bankrupcy’s and that bloody volcano people have began to slowly learn just how fickle the industry is and just how much we actually rely on it for everyday life.
The complete shut down of UK airspace has knocked the world out of sync, planes dispatched in far corners, mail not arriving, friends and family stuck dear know’s where.
Personally I think Michael O’Leary has done the industry a massive injustice last month when he agreed to pay out passengers for responsible expresses after claimed he would rather go to court than hand over the readies. Legally bound to pay yes however a court case would have highlighted just how tight a rope these companies walk on and that you really do get what you pay for. He had a opportunity to change the game going forward. After all someone has to pay for this so we are going to feel it in flight prices for years to come. You can’t really expect to pay £10 for a flight and then be put up in a hotel for 5 days when the flight can’t go through no fault of the airline can you ? (more…)
24 hours as a Porsche driver
I had the great pleasure over Friday and Saturday of driving and owning (for 24 hours) the new 2010 Porsche Boxster, kindly lend to me by the good people of Porsche Centre Belfast. I have been a fan of Porsche since a boy and whilst all my pals had dreams of winning the lottery and buying up Ferrari’s, Lambos and Astons, my eye was always on a Porsche, and not as a lottery winners car either, I wanted one for an every day car.
I have driven a few other the years and been taken out in others, every week I look at 924s and 944′s in the paper and think, wouldn’t that be a great weekender………… alas I never end up buying one. (more…)
The People’s Manifesto – an attack on 4×4 drivers !
Alan in Belfast talks about Mark Thomas new book, the People’s Manifesto. Its a good post, read it. The book looks good to, like a common sense approach to politics.
I just want to pull a few points from the book though,
“4×4 drivers should be forced to drive everywhere off-road, even to Sainsburys.”
That would sadly be illegal, most of the land (over 80% in Northern Ireland) is owned farmland and as such driving across it is trespassing.
“Anyone with a 4×4 in a city must also volunteer for the nearest mountain rescue service.”
On the UK Mainland their is such a thing as ‘The 4×4 response team’ which is a voluntary organisation and they do great work. Sadly in Northern Ireland this does not exist and no one I spoke to in local council seemed overly bother about setting one up.
I am off course, picking holes. I am for the 4×4 driver ! The correct 4×4 driver that is, I don’t have a 4×4 at present however when I did own one, I drove it off road. I stopped to pull fallen tree’s from the road and I pulled car’s from ditches. 4x4s are not a bad thing however the large % of 4x4s on our roads are nothing more than cars ferrying kids to school and mums to shops and these people do not know how to drive a 4×4 correctly !
I will buy a 4×4 again and I will take it off road ! (legally)
Rant over
Russell
Is twitter a valid newsroom for Northern Ireland ?
Since the dawn of Newspapers people have rushed to the local store to grab the morning headlines, then came along radio and people could tune in hourly to get their fix of local and national news. During war time people stayed glued to their radio’s to find out where the Natzi’s had bombed next and how the troops were getting on in Europe.
One thing has remained constant forever, people crave news and people want to be the first to know.
We had it really good there for a while, were we could hop on to numerous news sites and grab our fix but times are changing and newspapers are at the advent of charging for online content. So were do we look to get our news fix ? (more…)
Stephen Brown from The Adventure Team talks about Social Media
I met Stephen just over a year ago when he followed me on Twitter. We quickly began exchanging tweets, Facebook messages and texts until we finally met in person some months later and have bumped into each other several times since at various networking events.
As a scouter, his business fascinated me from day one as he basically gets paid to do all the fun stuff we do at scouts…. and he does it full time.
I booked him for a black tie event last year to do some pre-dinner games which turned out to be very novel, great sport and people are still talking about it today!
So what does this have to do with Social Media, well its simple. Stephen started his business (The Adventure Team) just over 12 months ago with virtually no money and absolutely no money for marketing or sales. What Stephen did have though was a computer and he quickly was able to build a large following on Facebook and Twitter. I look forward to Stephen’s daily Facebook update where he talks about what he is going to get up to that day. (more…)
Skoda – We manufacture happy drivers, but do your dealers ?
Maybe so but the main issue is that Skoda after building the car, then go and put their trust in their dealer network to stay true to the brand.
In April of 2009 I purchased a November registered 2006 Octavia vRS from Mervyn Stewart (MS) / Skoda in Belfast. I love(ed) it, I had been searching for a car for work, parenting and scouting for some time and it ticked all the boxes, whilst not being too common and still a bit cool. One of my biggest concerns with buying a used or ‘pre enjoyed’ car (in particular a Skoda), was the warranty as my father had had serious problems a number of years ago with the computer on his Octavia.
The dealer ‘ Richard’, in fact the ‘Manager’ said, “The warranty is up on that car in Nov 2009 and we will extend it by 2 further years” . Happy days ! Or so I thought until Saturday 9th January. When I was driving down the motorway, all power was lost and the car came to a stop and would not re start.
The following timeline then occured
Sat 9th Jan :
Car looses all power on the motorway. I call Skoda assist who tell me, ‘this car is out of warranty, call someone else’ After some explaining to them that the dealer extended the warranty they sent out the RAC who pulled in the computer which showed there was a fuel injector fault. He could not fix it so he suggested he would tow me into Skoda Belfast (Mervyn Stewart or MS as we will now call them). (more…)
Henderson Group to take over local coffee fanchise chain ‘the streat’
I have been working with ‘the streat’ for nearly two year’s now, providing a complimentary Wi-Fi service to customers in their key stores. They are a local success story started by Michael and wife Nikki McQuillan (of no relation).
The business started from just one store in Belfast in 1999 to a massive franchised coffee and sandwich store chain with over 30 locations in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Their stores are fresh, clean and provide good food at reasonable prices.
Their support network and business start plans and assistance are what keeps them alive and makes choosing them as a franchise a no brainer, over the past 10 years they have won several training awards and pride themselves on brand and quality.
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